The clap of thunder is your first clue: Vanda Jordan is not who she seems.

From the moment the young woman rushes in from the rainstorm in “Venus in Fur,” which StageWest presents through March 2, she slips out of your initial expectations and her trench coat in favor of something a little more uncomfortable.

Wait — what’s that, you ask? Why, yes. This play is about sadomasochism. It was inspired by the 1870 novel “Venus in Furs” — with an “s” — by the Austrian writer Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, who preferred the darker shades of gray so much that his last name is now synonymous with kinky sex. His Mutter and Vater would be so proud.

But even with its thunder and complicated lingerie, the stage adaptation by David Ives grows tedious, despite thoughtful direction by Simpson College theater professor Jennifer Nostrala and the best efforts of the show’s two actors, newcomer Jordyn Shipley and veteran Mark Maddy. The 90-minute show just doesn’t hold a lot of surprises after you figure out where it’s going — and who, inevitably, will be tied to the pole.

See, the pole happens to hold up the ceiling in a drab little room (smartly designed by Chris Williams) where a playwright and director named Thomas Novachek (Maddy) is holding auditions for the role of Wanda in his adaptation of the Sacher-Masoch novel. Dozens of actresses have tried out but none has impressed him, so he’s frustrated and ready to go home.

Enter: Vanda (Shipley), a street-smart dynamo who isn’t too proud to flirt and beg for a chance to read for the role. She persuades him to read through a scene with her, and bit by bit, convinces him to continue. It’s like watching Erin Brockovich start into the 1,001 tales of the “Arabian Nights.”

Both Shipley and Maddy rattle off reams of dialogue, and they play off each other well. She is brassy, while he is bookish. She is pushy. He is patronizing. And slowly, the power starts to shift: What started with him directing her switches the other way around.

It’s a little confusing sometimes, but the play-within-a-play helps broaden the two-person setup, especially since the actors swap accents and even gender roles. There are anywhere from four to seven portrayals, depending on how you count.

But the actors can pace between the table and red velvet couch only so many times before the room starts to feel cramped. Vanda can pull only so many props from her tote bag of tricks before you start to notice the overwritten script.